Six on Saturday

1.  WOW!

We are having a day at home. The girls are still in their PJ's amd it's 3:15pm in the afternoon.  They are in the study playing Minecraft together - Dave is in the study too playing League of Legends. I can hear Jasmin suck her breath in every time Dave swears! I have done absolutely nothing all day (except a couple of loads of washing, change a couple of beds, drink a couple of glasses of wine, surf the internet and do a couple of pages of our New Zealand photo book - *** sigh ****).

Gratuitous picture of New Zealand:

Have been working on the Franz Josef and Fox Glacier pages today.... this is a picture from Sentinel Rock of the Franz Josef Glacier - we did a one an a half hour return walk to the glacier - with stunning waterfalls on the way!

2.  Scrapbook Layouts

I have been a little busy - I'm not sure doing what - but I have only done a couple of pages in the last two weeks. Here they are:

Surprisingly they are pictures of New Zealand. The first one will go in one of the girls albums, the second will go in Eliza's album as they are pictures of her in Auckland.  I just noticed that both of them are rather pastelly (is that a word?).

3.  Helpful Homework

Eliza has to do helpful homework this term (in addition to her projects and other homework). This week she is helping cook dinner every night.  I have always worried about what would happen if I wasn't here (I know very morbid!), but the thought of the girls eating take-out every night does not make me feel very happy at all.

Now that the girls are old enough, over the last couple of years I have been teaching the girls what constitutes a healthy diet, and giving them some kitchen skills. As a result they know their five food groups and have an idea of what each food group contributes to their well-being, they can cut ingredients using knives using a variety of techniques, and they can measure out ingredients to help. I think I need them to start cooking reading a recipe without me.

Jazz always jokes about watching Jamie Oliver 15 minute meal episodes and just following along and doing what he does ( *** inner smile ***).  I think if I was to pass on (by accident of course - as I have no intentions of going anywhere) then they would probably be OK, and Dave would probably be eating more vegetables, chicken and fish and perhaps less red meat (the girls aren't huge fans - although they are rather partial to Asian dishes with good quality cuts of steak).

Anyways - here are a few pictures of Eliza helping this week.

Eliza helping make lamb meatballs for Minted Lamb and Risoni Soup on Monday:

Eliza topping and tailing green beans for Honey Mustard Beef Stir Fry on Tuesday night:

Eliza making sugar syrup for home-made lemonade on Wednesday night:

Eliza cutting up salad vegetables for dinner on Wednesday night to go with the grilled fish and home-made potato wedges. We had very chunky salad that night!

  
Thursday night Eliza wasn't feeling well so she didn't help with dinner (she was on the lounge fast asleep). It was so unnaturally quiet - you can always hear her talking or singing normally.

Friday night she prepared the chicken for Pesto Pasta with Rosemary Chicken - she added fennel seeds, rosemary, salt and pepper to chicken breasts and pounded them until the were thinner).

4.  Family Movie Night

Another great family movie night - watched yet another Superhero movie - Fantastic 4. Dave bought the blu-ray with both 1 and 2 on it.  The girls are really enjoying the superhero movies - and really enjoyed watching the second Wolverine movie at the Cinema last weekend.  Jasmin did a movie review on Wolverine in her homework last week as well - "It was amazing! I give it 4.5 stars out of 5......".

5.  July Project Life.

 A summary of our July. Highlights included Fiona's birthday. Week 1 school holidays in Goulburn for the girls, eating out and movies for us in Week 1 school holidays, Disney on Ice in Sydney, the girls doing the grocery shopping and Nan visiting week 2 of the school holidays.

Week 27 highlights - Eliza's special day at school - "the olden days", Fiona's birthday (my sis-in-law), new hair colour, a visit to Nan for her birthday, and dinner out at the Asta in Goulburn.

Week 28 highlights included - the girls spending the first week of the school holidays in Goulburn, Dave and I going to the movies and eating out, dinner at Phil and Janene's and Disney on Ice.

Week 29 highlights included Nan coming to Canberra to look after the girls for a couple of days (many board games were pulled out and played with), dinner at Soju girl on Tuesday night, hail on Saturday, making cupcakes on Sunday.

Week 30 - was cold and foggy, the girls made dinner on Saturday night, Jazz made mains and Eliza dessert. Family movie night on Friday night and board games on Sunday (it was a quiet week!).

6.  Reading

A couple of books since my last post:

I always enjoy the Preston and Child books - for one thing they are well edited, some books just astound me with the number of spelling and grammatical errors. The Book of the Dead was the third book in a Trilogy, and it had a satisfying finish and a surprising end. Neverwhere was just way too short - not a bad book, but not enough guts to it. Peter F. Hamilton is always a good read, and always a "big" book to read (thank goodness I listened to the audio book - otherwise I would be likely to donk myself in the head falling asleep in bed reading and it would hurt, a lot). Yes, I am a sucker for the J.R Ward books - great erotic romance with Vampires and plot LOL! She covers one characters story per book, and amazingly she manages to introduce new characters every couple of books - she could make this series last a while (which is OK with me!). The Diamond Age - disappointing - I did not enjoy it as much as Reamde, the end was a little lack-lustre.